Second-hand cars now account for 30% of sales on its sites, something that managers never expected.

ECONOMIST: eBay

Originally loping and straightforward, it now shimmies and swings, a model of loopy, unrestrained exuberance its originators could never have imagined.

NPR: Nina Simone Gets 'Remixed and Reimagined'

American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray noted that we now have a political class where many, if not most of its members, never worked for a relevant period of time in private business.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

Its Ferris Wheel, which was never put into action, is now an unforgettable symbol of the catastrophe.

BBC: A day trip to Chernobyl

But at least Amster now claims his company will never launch a lawsuit to enforce one of its patents.

FORBES: RPX IPO Helps Slay Patent Trolls

Without that rebellion, say those once involved (many of them now respected public figures), Germany would never have confronted its Nazi past or become so open, tolerant and democratic.

ECONOMIST: Charlemagne

The Federal Reserve has never suffered any losses in the course of its normal lending to banks and, now, to primary dealers.

FORBES: Magazine Article

And while the emphasis of marriage has changed over the centuries and it now stresses personal companionship more strongly, but its definition has never altered.

BBC: Viewpoints: Gay marriage

The infamous Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Taliban's ruthless religious enforcement agency, was never properly abolished: it has merely lost its ministerial status and is now known as the Department of Islamic Instruction.

ECONOMIST: The hunt continues | The

The Convention drawn up in the 1950s to counter the kind of abuses seen in the Soviet Union under Stalin, but was now being used for purposes which its authors never intended, Mr Grayling said.

BBC: Grayling: MPs to decide on prisoner votes